Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

This study examines gang group processes on the digital street to understand if gang processes in the online environment mimic those on geographic street corners. Specifically, this paper examines what conditions influence whether gangs interact negatively or positively in online spaces and how online interactions relate to geographic proximity of gangs.

This study uses digital trace data web scraped from a public Facebook about Chicago Latina/o gangs combined with geographic locations of gang territories. Negative binomial regression models are used to investigate the conditions under which gangs interact with one another.

This study finds that interactions among gangs are conditional on the type of post displayed and negative gang interactions in online spaces are moderately correlated with geographic proximity.

The tendency to show identification with the gang group or hostility to rival groups is not always evident. Rather, interactions are contextualized in the situation of the online environment. In addition, in our sample geographic proximity is not a primary condition of gang interactions. The digital street enables gang members to interact with other gangs in faraway locales and individuals in close geographic proximity. We find gang members take the opportunity to interact with both groups.

The recurring mass murder of students in schools has sparked an intense debate about how best to increase school safety. Because public opinion weighs heavily in this debate, we examine public views on how best to prevent school shootings. We theorize that three moral-altruistic factors are likely to be broadly relevant to public opinion on school safety policies: moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear.

We commissioned YouGov to survey 1,100 Americans to explore support for a range of gun control and school programming policies and willingness to pay for school target hardening. We test the ability of a moral-altruistic model to explain public opinion, while controlling for the major predictors of gun control attitudes found in the social sciences.

The public strongly supports policies that restrict who can access guns, expand school anti-bullying and counseling programs, and target-harden schools. While many factors influence attitudes toward gun-related policies specifically, moral-altruistic factors significantly increase support for all three types of school safety policies.

The public favors a comprehensive policy response and is willing to pay for it. Support for prevention efforts reflects moral intuitions about harm, anger about school crime, and altruistic fear.

This study examines the influence of online peers who are not regularly seen in person by considering if online, pro-delinquent support is associated with self-reported delinquency independently of delinquent peers.

Data come from a longitudinal, panel survey of two cohorts of middle and high school students located within six school districts (N = 1,177). Analyses first examine the overlap between online peer support for delinquency and perceived peer delinquency. Next, models consider how measures of online peer support for delinquency are associated with the prevalence (logit), variety (negative binomial), and changes (first difference) in self-reported delinquency.

Online peers generally do not enable exposure to new messages supportive of delinquency; rather, they supplement influences derived from delinquent peers. Little evidence was found that online peer support was associated with general delinquency and violence, although changes in online peer support were associated with changes in these outcomes. Partial evidence was found that online peers are associated with the prevalence, variety, and changes in self-reported theft and substance use.

The influence from unique online peers is largely secondary to offline peers, although this depends upon the crime type under investigation.

Criminologists have long viewed morality as a critical element in offending. However, two factors limit the theoretical impact of prior work. First, no overarching framework for describing the nature and role of morality has been developed. Second, morality has been measured in a narrow manner as the extent to which individuals disapprove of particular acts of offending. To address these limitations, we examine the utility of a moral psychological framework—Moral Foundations Theory (MFT)—that fits remarkably well with the conceptions of morality found in criminological theorizing (i.e., that morality inhibits offending, has intuitive and pluralistic dimensions, and under certain circumstances may motivate offending).

We use negative binomial regression to model self-reported counts of violence, group violence, theft, property damage, marijuana use, and illegal phone use while driving, in a large national sample of Icelandic youths (n = 10,710).

We find that individualizing moral intuitions centered on rights and autonomy and binding moral intuitions centered on social order and cohesion are uniquely associated with different types of offending and exhibit inhibiting or motivating effects depending on the outcome.

MFT holds considerable promise as a framework for conducting criminological research on the relationship between morality and offending.